It costs a lot of money to build a casino.
The above quotes explain how the owners get their money back.
The last time I was in Vegas, one of the Fremont casinos (maybe Binion’s?) had a small selection of skill-based slots based on classic arcade games. You literally play the game (I think the one I was on was Xevious?) and each time you fire a shot that hits an enemy it somehow counts as a wager. I made about $30 in 15 minutes of playing one but I’m not really sure how.
They used to have Wedges and ledge, which is somewhat skill based. I could reliably make $20 if there were several machines to pick from. Mind you- that is a big whopping $20.
I doubt it too. It sort of reminds me of quiz machines you used to see in pubs (hardly ever now, presumably because even with tight time limits on answering, you could still Google the answer to nearly every question). After some experience with them it became obvious to me that when the machine was full of money, the questions became easier (allowing a small win) but once they had paid out, the questions became harder again. Absent outside help, it’s possible to make a trivia question almost impossibly hard. So technically a game of skill, but in practice just another slot machine (albeit one I enjoyed playing more than pure gambling machines).
Heh. I spent Saturday and Sunday at my local racetrack. After two days, I’m up a whole $2.
I suppose that there is some skill involved in being able to read the Racing Form, and understand all that it is saying, and based on that understanding, making reasonable selections as to which horses to bet on. But things don’t always work the way they should on paper. As we often say, “The horses cannot read, much less read the Form.”
My dad could usually win enough to pay for the day- ie hotdogs, entrance fee, drinks, etc. Because you are betting against other betters, many of whom have no idea what they are doing. Mind you the track takes it’s cut, so winning big is tough.
$120 an hour to fight off invading space aliens sounds about right.
There used to be (It may still exist. I’m not sure) called Cover The Spot. There was a little luck involved. But, mostly it was genuinely a game of skill. Games magazine did an article on it. The article included the method to beat the game. Before the birth of the internet, I was in a Chuck E Cheese. They had an automated Cover The Spot machine. I mentioned the arficle to the friends I was with. I’m sure the method for beating Cover The Spot is easily available on the net these days.
I agree that any true game of skill would have tutorials on the net within minutes of it’s opening.
I’m struggling to understand the benefit to the casinos.
- Such games are very space-intensive.
- They would naturally draw people who tended to be skilled at them, whereas all other casino games have an essentially predictable return no matter who the player is. Some players could have a positive EV in a skill game; no one has a positive EV on a slot machine.
- You can’t cheat as easily as you can with carnival games. There’s more scrutiny. Say what you will about casino games, but they’re above board. The rules and conditions are clear; the casino isn’t allowed to load the dice or take cards out of the deck.
I’m reading Nate Silver’s latest book. A lot of it is about playing poker and casinos. He implies if you get very good at something, I think he mentioned sports betting, many casinos will limit you to $100 bets. Casinos want to make money, and they do this by having a statistical edge in random games.^ What is that edge in a true game of skill? And why would you think any game of skill in Vegas would not attract those good at playing it?
But it isn’t necessarily true any game of skill has to take up a lot of physical space. They don’t at carnivals. Still, it already goes against their whole economic philosophy; they don’t need many excuses not to do it.
^The house edge is very small on 3:2 games of blackjack. It is much higher on slot machines, which is why they are much more numerous.
Beg pardon? They take up a ton of space at carnivals. A typical carnie game takes up a 10’ square tent or so. In that space, you can get somewhere between 1 and 6 people playing, depending on the game. How many slot machines can you fit in that same space?
I guess it’s relative. Sure, you could fit more slots. But efficient use of a hundred square feet space is not the reason casinos prefer random games with a predictable edge. Casinos are often huge. More important than the number of playing patrons is how much they bet and lose - that is, “whales” who bet very big and know very little are at the top of the casino hierarchy.
I’m sure that if there was a whale who was consistently horrible at the three point shot game they’d accommodate him.
Many casinos now pay 6:5, usually for anything under $100 a hand.
Sure. Silver says going from 3:2 to 6:5 increases the house blackjack edge from 0.15% to 0.5%. Still pretty small, though a quite significant difference. But there are a couple of 3:2 games that still exist (though may be hard to find) in Vegas.
About six to eight, based on my observation of my local race book, which also contains maybe three dozen slot machines for those not interested in betting horses. If those machines are working unattended 24/7, and returning (for example) 8%, then how much revenue is that 100 square feet generating per day, as opposed to a skill game that requires a paid operator/attendant?
I don’t know, but I’d be willing to guess that the slot machines provide more revenue per square foot to the casino, than a skill game would.
This would need a new regulatory framework. In Nevada at least, casino games are very strictly regulated in terms of procedure, odds, equipment design and inspections. If you introduced an entirely new category of games like carnival games, you’d have to come up with a very different framework to define and operate those games in a way that’s fair, consistent, and enforceable, which is trickier than it is with simple games of chance.
The casinos would have a hard time setting the odds, so to speak. They can know exactly what their expectation is on each kind of bet on their games of chance. They can design the games to have whatever house edge they want and fully understand what the odds are of having a jackpot or other high variance outcome. How would you set the odds on carnival games? You’d have to basically run real human tests in various scenarios. If there’s a “sink X basketballs” challenge, you’d have to test a few thousand people and see how they do at 5 feet, or 10 feet, or with a higher or lower hoop, etc. Only after a while would you get to an idea of how the average person would fair, but that’s not nearly as predictable as a casino game where you fully 100% understand the probabilities involved.
There’s also an issue of self-selection where people who are better at that task are going to be attracted to that game. If it’s a skill game, and it’s possible to beat, then you’re going to have people who make it their job to beat your game. And if you make it so hard that it’s not possible to beat, the average person isn’t going to come very close and probably won’t stick with it for long. You’d have to back off good players all the time (ban them from playing that game). I’m not sure how that affects how the rest of the potential player would see it.
It’s hard to hook bad players on the game – if someone is truly hopeless at the skill game, they’re just going to stop trying, whereas there are all sorts of psychological tricks to keep people hooked on games they can’t win. Someone is going to be much better at figuring out they’re not Steph Curry at 3 point shots and rarely win compared to people who play other games where they will lose on average but have a few wins here and there that they blow out of proportion in their minds. Randomness (variable reinforcement schedule) has a special relationship with creating addictive behavior towards gambling, which casinos will say they’re not trying to engage in but obviously are. It’s less likely you’re going to get a bad player hooked on a skill game.
It’s a cool idea, I’d see and maybe even participate if it became a thing, it’d be interesting, but it’d be a hassle with a lot of new variables and a need for new regulatory frameworks so I doubt it would happen. Maybe in poor countries where the casinos are already way scammier/less regulated/less legit than somewhere like Las Vegas.
i was thinking about that at Chuck E. Cheese a while back … they had a hoops game where the hoop moved around and you had to make so many baskets in 90 seconds to get the tickets…
I wonder if that’s something like what the OP had in mind
This all reminds me of that scene in Vegas Vacation when Clark and Eddie go to that casino and they had games like “Guess a number” and “rock, paper, scissors.” (and they still lost)